Plans to close Alvaston Park to vehicles overnight in a bid to stop dirt bikers' nuisance behaviour will not continue, the city council has said.

Community group Alvaston Park Friends announced on Facebook in August this year that the park gates would be locked between 10pm and 6am following complaints about dirt bikers causing noise problems and upsetting other park users.

City councillor for Alvaston, Alan Graves, said plans to close the park to vehicles overnight had been in the pipeline for several months prior to the change being introduced.

He had said that he was expecting it to be a long-term plan.

But now, following a short implementation of the closure, the city council it was never planning for the park to be closed overnight permanently.

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A spokesman for Derby City Council said: "All parks with car parking areas like Alvaston enjoy open access, and there has never been any ongoing budget provision for permanently locking these parks at night.

"The vehicular entrance drive to Alvaston was locked on a temporary basis for a short time last winter to help address some problems, but this was never intended to be a permanent arrangement.

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"The most recent incident of burnt-out cars on Alvaston Park was in February 2016. Anti-social behaviour problems involving vehicles are not confined to Alvaston Park and the best way of addressing these issues is through partnership working between the city council, local residents, friends groups and the police.”

Mr Graves said he believed the park should be locked to stop incidents of vandalism and "nuisance vehicles" from going into the park during the hours of darkness, but the council's leisure, culture and tourism department did not have the resources to implement the plans and the responsibility could not be handed to volunteers from Alvaston Park Friends.